Category: The Dish

Not what you’d call a flying start:

"It was short," said Richard Heitmiller of Nashua. "He’s got a nice voice. But there was nothing there. He’s for apple pie and motherhood. He’s going to have to say what he’s for."

Heitmiller said he hadn’t made up his mind about whom to support — way too early — and had come to learn more about this man he’d heard about but never seen.

"People want to get to know him. He hasn’t been here, and he gives a nine-minute speech," he said dismissively. As Thompson exited, people started making their way to the doors midway through a reception.

"I told my wife we’d get home by 8. We’ll get home a lot earlier than that," Heitmiller said.

I can’t see anything beyond the hype myself.

The congressman from Texas was one of only two Republicans voting for Rahm Emmanuel’s bid to defund the veep’s office. I think Paul will vote to defund anything, which is partly why I love him, of course. But it’s an added advantage that it will tick Cheney off.

Vive la resistance. (Hat Tip: TPM.)

Andy Bacevich asks the question and answers: nothing. Money quote:

The war’s opponents must align their moral concerns, which are complex, with their seemingly straightforward policy prescription. That alignment becomes possible if we recognize that America’s obligation is not to Iraq but to Iraqis. As a nation-state, Iraq – awash with sectarian violence and lacking legitimate institutions – can hardly be said to exist. We owe Iraq nothing.

In contrast, we owe the Iraqis whose lives we have blighted quite a lot. We should repay that debt much as we (partially at least) repaid our debt to the people of South Vietnam after 1975: by offering them sanctuary.

(Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty.)

Another online test! (Hat tip: Doc Bushwell.)

A look at the historical record since Ike. Clinton does best.

A C-Span video of Irshad Manji’s Monday speech to the American Library Association. Don’t miss the reading poem from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the end.

An interesting point:

There’s this weird paradox, in that the more transparent you become, the less spontaneous you can be. For example, you had these stories of people like JFK and LBJ on a campaign airplane, shooting the bull off the record with reporters and saying all kinds of stuff that they would never say now. But there’s no such thing as off the record anymore. You can’t do that. And the result has been, so far, that candidates have gotten stiffer and more scripted. The question is whether at some point that turns around. At some point, the fact that everything is constantly covered means that no particular news is really that big, and people will be able to be more spontaneous again. I don’t think that will happen this election cycle, but I’d love to be wrong.

St Petersburg, Russia, 10.30 pm.

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In today’s climate, it may be the best conservatives can hope for. But that isn’t stopping CATO from criticizing:

Although the legislation, as Stuart Altman put it, "is not a typical Massachusetts–Taxachusetts, oh–just–crazy–liberal plan," there is enough "bad" and "ugly" in the mix to raise serious concerns, particularly when the desire to overregulate the health insurance market appears to be hard–wired into Massachusetts policymakers’ DNA.

If we want to make health insurance more affordable and avoid the "bad" and the "ugly" of the Massachusetts plan, Congress — or, barring that, individual states — should consider a "regulatory federalism" approach.